Archive for the ‘corsair’ tag

If you followed our day by day updates on Computex 2015, you'll know we caught up with loads of companies who all had on display their latest and upcoming products. Now that the dust has settled and the jetlag mostly dissipated, I wanted to give a more personal view on what I thought were the things that truly stood out – let me know if you agree or disagree! Be sure to check out the full coverage of Computex here for a better idea and more images of the products discussed: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

If you've been keeping up with our Computex 2014 coverage, you'll know that we saw a whole host of companies keen to show off their latest and greatest products, including numerous ones that are yet to be released. I thought it would be interesting to open a discussion about the products that stood out most to me – let me know if you agree or disagree with my picks.

After a couple of years of mediocre progress, we're seeing some genuine innovation with cases that are leaning ever more towards water cooling. Pretty much every medium to large case that's released these days - even smaller mini-ITX ones on occasion - sports double, triple or even quadruple fan mounts, and though these of course boost air cooling potential too, they also allow for larger radiators to be installed.

Manufacturers such as Corsair and NZXT are now in the habit of listing radiator compatibility in their case instruction manuals too - they're clearly taking it seriously and rightly so. Water cooling is one area of the PC industry that has certainly been growing over the last few years with all-in-one liquid coolers and full-on custom water cooling topping cooler graphs and featuring in many eye candy-filled systems - both modding projects and standard builds alike.

However, there is one small issue with many cases - specifically their radiator mounts. They're usually designed only for half-height radiators, which lack surface area and thus cooling potential compared to their full-height siblings, and many cases also seem to be listing radiator and water cooling compatibility as little more than tick-box features.

Some manufacturers are shunning space for large air coolers in favour of radiator mounts such as Lian Li with is PC-V360 - Click to enlarge

My point here is that when you try to install a water cooling system in one, there's so little space that tube kinks become a real issue and there's also little thought as to where to put pumps and reservoirs. One big factor here is that case manufacturers aren't actually that concerned with custom water cooling loops (as in separate components connected together at home) and rather more with all-in-one systems such as a Corsair H80i.

It's not just Corsair and NZXT, who incidentally make some of the best all-in-one liquid coolers out there, that are doing this. After all, you can forgive them for promoting a combination of their own case and cooler, but plenty of other manufacturers are doing it too.

Many all-in-one liquid coolers come equipped with half-height radiators while larger radiators are available with custom water cooling that can provide additional cooling capacity

For instance, I've recently borrowed the Lian Li PC-V360 we looked at recently to see how well it can cope with a water cooling system, seeing as it has a dedicated dual 120mm-fan radiator mount in the side panel and is too slim to fit large air coolers.

In short, it wasn't easy at all and I had to use anti-kinking springs on the tubing for everything to fit inside - and that's using the skinniest radiator I could find. Also, this turned out to be only just capable of cooling my overclocked Core i5-3570K and GeForce 660 Ti with the fans on full blast, which for me half defeats the point of water cooling, which is noise reduction.

You usually have to opt for larger cases such as Corsair's Graphite 760T, but just a few changes could mean smaller cases are just as water cooling-friendly - click to enlarge

Even with an all-in-one liquid cooler things would be tricky, but as we speak I'm in the process of dismantling the system to go back to my trusted BitFenix Prodigy, which is much more water cooling friendly. Of course, that's my point; some cases do work well with water cooling, the Prodigy being one of them. It's also far from being a large case - the PC-V360 is taller and deeper but can't quite decide whether to jump off the fence on the air cooling side or water cooling side.

A lot of the issues, then, revolve around radiator depth, and at the moment, many case manufacturers are content to leave their cases with the bare minimum. You probably can't blame them to some extent as the vast majority of all-in-one liquid coolers use skinny radiators - one reason why a custom kit with a full-height double or triple 120mm-fan radiator will likely perform much better and quieter with an overclocked CPU.

So, what would I like to see? Better consideration for water cooling enthusiasts for one, but this could just as easily be brought about by all-in-one liquid cooler manufacturers beefing up their radiators too, especially where double fan radiators are concerned. That way, we don't only get better cooling from their own coolers, but you won't have to opt for enormous cases or go through the hassle of having to use multiple radiators too. It wouldn't require massive changes either - a few small modifications to existing case designs could make a world of difference.

How do you think current cases could be improved for water cooling purposes? Let us know in the forum.

Paul, James and Harry go a little peripheral crazy in this week's hardware podcast, but that's understandable as they're joined by special guest Reuben Mookerjee, vice president of Corsair's Component division.

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of peripheral design, however, we do have time to cover one or two of the most pressing stories of the week. First on the list is Intel's announcement that it will be selling a low-cost liquid cooler for use with its forthcoming LGA2011 CPUs.

Anyone remember ESA? Nvidia's attempt at making the PC platform its own with the 'Enthusiast Systems Architecture' software? The idea was to get other manufacturers to include little chips in their hardware that enabled them to talk to Nvidia's motherboards. Nvidia's ESA software would then report all the readouts: voltages, temperatures, speeds and so in a single, central interface.

The problem? Other companies (mostly motherboard makers) already had their own software, and they were (and still are) key features with which to differentiate and sell their products. They already did most of the same tasks, such as temperature and voltage monitoring, as well as overclocking, even if they lacked the fancy 3D interface.

Now that Intel is done with releasing CPUs for the time being, we've got a chance to analyse the situation and see what's worth buying. For those on a budget, the Intel Core i3-530 is your best bet unless your budget is limited to £70 or so, in which case you'll have to look elsewhere. But I'm betting that if your budget is so tight that you can't go for the superior Intel Core i5-750, you haven't got fancy DDR3 memory or an LGA1156 motherboard. Enter the easy Core i3 upgrade bundle.

The buzz in extreme overclocking circles recently has been about DDR3 memory featuring Elipda Hyper ICs coming to an early death. In response to this, several companies have stopped selling very high frequency and/or very low latency DDR3 products built with these ICs.